Why young Jesus had to learn the Torah

Some people have wondered why, if Jesus was the Son of God, he had to study the Torah and basically, to put it in modern terms, “learn the scriptures.” People figure that if Jesus was God, then he would “already know everything” including what was in the “Bible.” I’ve already written in a previous post explaining that Jesus knew who he was and communicated with God the Father from the moment he was born. I go through that whole explanation in order to debunk heretical thoughts that Jesus “did not know who he was,” and to show the reader how Jesus was in continual internal (through prayer and thought) communication with God the Father. Now to answer this question, which might be paraphrased as to be “Why did Jesus go through a human learning period?” Notice how as soon as I paraphrase this question, the answer is a little bit obvious and makes the asking even a bit silly. If Jesus Christ was going to be born, live, and ultimately die as a human, of course he had to learn how to talk, take care of himself, and learn facts about life in the native language. These are all human brain development functions that of course he would share with all other humans. The exceptions are that he had adult knowledge and thoughts even as a baby (because of his continual communion with God) and the report in the Quran, but not verified in the Bible, that he actually could speak at birth. It is quite likely that he could speak as a baby because continual communion with God would give him the complexity of thought capability to talk, as soon as his physical ability to talk would support speech. So Jesus had some clear mental and emotional advantages from being in communion with God the Father from birth, and he had total self knowledge.

As part of his total understanding of whom he really was, and who God the Father was, of course he would have complete understanding of the nature of the universe. However, just because he knew the “why” and “how” of everything does not mean that his brain would be “preloaded” with every man made fact. I’ll use two analogies to help with this. God is the possessor of all knowledge of reality, being both the creator of reality and the all pervasive source of energy of reality. So you could think of God as creating the ultimate computer, and each human being is running his or her own program of life on that computer. (I’m not saying this is how it is in reality, but I’m using a geeky analogy to help with understanding.) So Jesus would be born with a total understanding of how that computer was built, and how it operated (and what the outcome would be of every program ever run.) Being a human and choosing to live as a human does not mean that Jesus is watching every single program that every human is running at a given time. He could if he wanted to (witness in the Bible how he knew the sins of the woman at the well even before he met her) but he did not live that way day by day. He allowed himself to be human. So he would have to learn, for example the Torah, in order to see what programs mankind was running. He would have to see what parts of God’s word the authors of the Old Testament had recorded and learn how they were expressed, just as anyone else did. The difference is that he would recognize in those words which programs those authors had “written” in their conversation with God (for example, Moses) or through their inspiration by the Holy Spirit and he alone would be able to verify that they were true and accurate. The mindset would be something like this. Jesus would read a section of scripture and think, “Ah yes, I remember when that happened. How nice that this was preserved in writing the way it was. So, this is the wording that David used in this psalm? How beautiful and true.” He would also have thoughts that would not translate to human thoughts of how the part of scripture he was reading fit into God’s plan. That is because God’s plan is very visual, in a way, because it is so infinite and all comprehensive. Jesus would be able to read a psalm of David’s, for example, and not only remember when David wrote it, and all the events around it, but he’d also know its implications throughout human history. He would know the “why” of that psalm, not only in the past, but in his current time, and also in the future. To use our example again, Jesus would understand in totality any life program that any human would ever run that touched on the theology of that psalm. That is what a glimpse into Jesus’ mind would have been like. So for him, learning the Old Testament would be him learning what language and programs humans had chosen under God’s guidance to operate on the “Word of God computer.”

The second analogy is that Jesus had to learn his “native language” like any human in order to communicate with others and fulfill his mission as Messiah. But in his case I do not mean Aramaic or Hebrew. While all human babies are born with ears and mouth but not yet language, Jesus was born with ears and mouth but already speaking internally “God’s language.” So Jesus already had a “native language,” and that was the “language” that God speaks. Learning Aramaic or Hebrew would have been, for him, learning a “second language.” He would have to learn what sounds and words people used to express the concept of “*indescribable to humans God concept A*” and “*other indescribable to humans God concept B.*” Because humans cannot think like God or perceive like God, Jesus would have had to learn through Aramaic or Hebrew what humans WERE able to think about and articulate. He would then use the linguistic skills he learned to shape the concepts of God (his true native language) into concepts that humans could hope to understand. This is also a reason why he used analogies and parables so much. He would take a concept that might be very hard to understand (even if it were a completely human based idea) and put it into the language and the cultural formation that would best convey the idea. If he had popped onto earth speaking totally perfect Aramaic or Hebrew, he would not have had the “inside outward” or from “bottom up” understanding of how humans developed in their speech and ability to logic, and most importantly, their limitations. By learning Aramaic “alongside” of the other children of the time, he was better able to translate the language of God that he was born with perfect knowledge of into what he had to teach and preach. So to go back to the psalm analogy, Jesus would be perfectly able to “leaf through” scriptures and think, “Yes, this is a good one to use when trying to explain this part of the Kingdom of God. They will understand that one.” It’s not like he had to read the Old Testament to know what God’s been up to because he already was totally part of God’s “native language” and “universal computer,” to combine my two analogies. He knew the entire how’s” and “why’s,” but he let himself be an authentic human (Son of Man) in order to learn alongside humans how best to teach them and preach to them. He did not come to earth in order to be smarter and more erudite than everyone else. He did not have to rattle off scripture quotations faster than anyone else in six different languages.

Remember, he amazed the teachers in the Temple in Jerusalem at the age of twelve by how he answered questions, showing comprehension of the how’s and why’s that they had never seen before. He did not come to earth to be the perfect scribe, but to be the Messiah. He came to share his perfect knowledge, to show a human solidarity, and then show the way to perfect belief and faith leading people toward the Kingdom of God.